I lifted my Miracle Berry plant’s pot today and found white worms all over the drainage holes!!
Upon closer inspection they look like centipedes but small and white and some searching turns them up looking most close to Garden Symphylan… A PEST I’VE NEVER DEALT WITH BEFORE!!!
I have a few slices of carrot now on the surface and in 24 hours I’ll be lifting and dunking them in water to slowly remove what I can as a form of being “proactive”.
I know I can remove the plant’s soil entirely under water and then repot but it’s risky and this was not a cheap plant to get in my collection. I’ve already contacted the nursery as the other plant I got from them at the same time is totally fine and this batch of Miracle Berries may all have these fuckers tagging along from their source of origin.
They’re good people and will get back to me soon; if they tell me to wash the roots i’ll trust them but also hope they offer support in the form of a replacement if this is the case with their entire stock.
That’s what a cursory googling gave me, I also found some mentions of NEEM oil. See if maybe you can’t find some sort of beneficial milipede and force these out through numbers? Good luck.
I think you can do a soapy water submerge to the pot/soil. It should drown most of em. Not completely the same but had a centipede colony hitchhike home with a Monstera a couple weeks ago, was so bad I ended up doing a complete root wash and soil replacement though
Hopefully they get back to you soon with some instructions or a replacement
edit: nevermind, apparently symphylan are pretty resilient and the drowning probably won’t help much
Lol. I like the biowarfare idea and will keep an eye open.
How did you find this to work out? It’s my hail-mary pass move if things keep going downhill.
I did add BTI to this and the Tea plant I got when they arrived. Force of habit since I hate these insect battles as I’ll less likely to win than they are.
Actually come to think of it, did a complete root wash and separation on 5 coffee plants stuck in a tiny pot a month or so a go. Smaller, more delicate roots probably closer to a Miracle Fruit than an Aroid and they didn’t miss a beat
Well, I just heard back from them and they did recommend a total repotting with root wash and new soil.
I mixed up 1:1 promix BX + perlite and made a 5 gallon bucked of PH 4.0 water to then do the deed. It’s all re-potted now in a smaller pot and I’ve been adding water to the drip-tray for it to wick up.
vibes:
